Artist Bio + Statement + Series Statements
Artist Bio
Oscar McDonah is a Lancaster based Sculpture / Installation artist having graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Millersville University in 2024. McDonah has also been practicing as a lighting designer for the past five years. Much of McDonah’s installation works approach the reimagining of familiar interior spaces through simplified architecture, exaggerated color, as well as superimposed forms and textures. When focussing on smaller sculptural works, McDonah further seeks to explore concepts which draw from the proximity of juxtaposed contexts, usually pulled from industrial materials and the challenging of their functions.
In an effort to marry both practices in these avenues of sculpture, many of Oscar’s pieces incorporate both reflective and fabricated narrative while highlighting raw industrial materials and harboring light sources.
Artist Statement
Through my practice as a sculpture artist as well as a front of house lighting director, attention to environment and atmosphere has become very important to my work; (in the case of how a piece interacts with its surrounding environment, and how the piece itself can alter or contribute to such). With this focus, much of my practice is executed through the incorporation of scale and lighting design.
When I was originally approaching the medium of sculpture, I was coming from a background of many years experience in Fine Art Metals and Jewelry. I was used to spending long stretches of time working meticulously on smaller scale works, and I wanted to see how far I could push scale in that same amount of time in the medium of sculpture; generally working less concerned on the finer details, but to a degree that I still felt accomplished with my craftsmanship. Early on I became very fond of rough industrial building materials such as plywood, 2x4s, wooden pallets, chicken wire, found objects, and I have just recently become inspired by the materials of Bondo as well as oscillating sander sand paper discs. I have found humor in utilizing these materials for the purpose of art rather than their traditional uses in construction, especially when married with materials with more domestic connotations such as hanging lamps, fabric, and paper.
Challenging the theme of function is crucial to my work, and I am constantly exploring this through the repurposing of industrial materials, while also adding light sources to many of my pieces, in turn making them vessels regardless of form. I am specifically interested in challenging the function of industrial materials for the purpose of aesthetic.
Buoy Series Statement
In this body of work I am continuing to explore and challenge the concept of function as it relates to industrial materials and tools; specific to these pieces I am exploring such through the materials of Bondo, Easy Sand, and sand paper discs. These sanding materials have been pulled from the context of production and craftsmanship within the woodshop. Now, rather than serving as a means to an end in cabinetry finishing, they are what compose the ‘final product.’The function of the sand paper discs and Bondo is no longer to enhance the quality of a product separate from itself, but to be highlighted as inherently holding aesthetic value.
The intended function of Bondo and Easy Sand is to be used together as a two part hardening compound in automobile and marine cosmetic repairs, then sanded to adhere to the rest of the original form and finally painted. Rather than have the presence of the two part compound hidden, it is highlighted, and rather than use it cosmetically, it is used structurally, while the sandpaper discs are used for visual documentation and aesthetic purposes. The conversation in which these pieces engage in is furthered even still in the environment and means of display which they inhabit.